


Dark Towers & Lonely Roads

by Skeiler



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeiler/pseuds/Skeiler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arabella Strange at Christmas, 1817. A brief glimpse of her life after the end of the book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Towers & Lonely Roads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CakeorDeath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CakeorDeath/gifts).



On each Thursday, the residents of 19 Portman Square were accustomed to receiving two unusual guests who came to join their mistress for tea: one arrived by the un-extraordinary means of horse-drawn carriage, but was one of the most famous and notable personalities of London; the other emerged from an arched doorway that appeared at the right of the upstairs linen cupboard. These two people were Lady Pole and Stephen Black, who came each week to take tea with their friend Mrs Strange in her new home.

Arabella greeted them by standing in the entry hall of the modest house she had taken after her return from Italy. With the disappearance of Ashfair and the house in Soho-square, Arabella had found herself without a residence upon her return to England in June. Luckily, the whole of Jonathan’s property in Shropshire had not disappeared with the house, and she could live comfortably on the income from the tenant farmers. Her new home was not so grand as the house in Soho-square had been, and had not quite as fashionable location, but it was bright and Arabella liked it well enough.

On this bright, cold December afternoon, Arabella’s guests made their entrance punctually, at almost the same moment. A butler was placed at the top of the stairs near the linen closet, and took Stephen Black’s coat and hat as soon as the arched door opened and the new king of Lost-hope stepped onto the landing from Wherever. A maid was simultaneously taking Lady Pole’s cloak and bonnet near the front door, while Arabella inquired solicitously about her journey through the streets of London. She turned to ask Stephen the same question as he descended the stairs.

‘I’m sure my journey was nowhere near as cold or long as Lady Pole’s,’ Stephen replied. ‘I have but to open a door and I am here.’

Arabella laughed. ‘And yet you always dress as though you have a long journey to make,’ she observed as the butler passed by with Stephen’s coat and hat. ‘If you only have to pass from one of your house’s rooms into one of mine, why do you bother putting on your riding boots and great coat?’

‘Old habit, I suppose,’ Stephen replied.

Arabella smiled her charming smile upon him and led her guests into the dining room. They settled themselves around the small drawing room with its fine furniture and regarded each other fondly. Theirs was a strong bond of friendship, born of their mutual experience at the hands of the Man With The Thistle-down Hair, and although they had their differences now, they all remained committed to each other.

Lady Pole remarked, ‘You do not seem to be making many preparations for travelling, Arabella. Will you not go to Northamptonshire to spend Christmastide with your brother and Mrs Woodhope?’

Arabella cast her eyes down briefly before smiling kindly at Lady Pole. ‘No, I will not. I still have not quite forgiven Henry for giving Jonathan’s letters to Mr Norrell, although Henry has satisfied me that the book of them that was published in January was most radically altered,’ Arabella explained. ‘And I do not believe Jonathan would like to see me go there either.’

Lady Pole huffed at the mention of the magicians—her crusade to see them both dishonoured in the eyes of the nation for their role in her imprisonment was not advancing very quickly. ‘What does it matter what your husband would like, Arabella, he is not here. You need not live your life by what _he_ may or may not want for you after he abandoned you—’

Stephen Black interceded between the two women by asking Arabella, ‘How will you spend Christmastide, Mrs Strange?’

Lady Pole scowled at Stephen—trying to convince Arabella of the evil and indifference of Mr Strange was one of Lady Pole’s favourite themes to speak upon, and Arabella rarely had the temerity to stop her once she had begun. She and Stephen took a different view of their mutual situation, and Arabella recognized that once Jonathan had discovered what had really happened to her and the others, he had done everything in his power to save them.

‘Well, I suppose like any other Christmas,’ Arabella replied, sweetly. ‘I have bought some holly boughs to hang around the house, and I have given cook permission to prepare a Christmas dinner for the servants. I have bought some shoes to be given to some of the local poor, and I think I will go with Mrs Beech, the wife of the parson of St Thomas’, to give them to those in need.’

‘But, my dear,’ Lady Pole insisted, ‘you must come and spend some of Christmastide with us. We will be staying in London—Sir Walter has business he must attend to, and cannot spare the time to travel.’ Lady Pole took Arabella’s hands and clasped them gently in her own. ‘Come and help us put up our holly. It will be very gay.’

‘Yes,’ Arabella said, with a somewhat wistful smile, ‘That would be lovely.’

They spent the rest of the afternoon in pleasant conversation, before Lady Pole departed for home and Stephen Black departed to meet with his friends at the Peep-O’Day-Boys. Arabella watched them depart in Sir Walter’s handsome carriage into the crisp evening. The stars were very bright in the clear night sky, and Arabella stood for a moment in her doorway and listened to the sounds of people around her. In the midst of the square was a small garden, and Arabella impetuously decided to go for a walk around it. She called for Jeremy Johns, who came to escort her, and pulled her shawl close around her.

At the gate leading into the small garden, Arabella felt a chill. It seemed as though the air inside the iron fence was of a heavier sort—it felt slightly damper and somewhat warmer, like stepping into a greenhouse. She quickly glanced up through the trees, but couldn’t tell if the stars seemed different here, wherever she had suddenly stepped into.

Undaunted, and with a heart that beat a little quicker than was its wont, Arabella proceeded alone into the heart of the square while Jeremy kept watch at the gate. It was deserted except for a single man, who sat upon a bench and read a book by candlelight. A path snaked its way from his feet through trees that did not belong in Portman Square, to the lighted open door of a stone house Arabella did not recognize.

But she recognized the man well enough, and with a calmer mind she walked towards him.

‘Jonathan,’ she whispered.

He looked up and smiled at her. ‘Merry Christmas, Arabella.’

‘Jonathan, it is not Christmas,’ she corrected him as she sat next to him on the bench. ‘It is only the twentieth.’

‘Is it?’ Jonathan looked vaguely alarmed for a brief moment, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s hard to keep track of the day sometimes.’

Arabella smiled at him tenderly. ‘How are you?’

Jonathan shrugged again. ‘I am well.’

Arabella fixed him with a searching look. ‘You seem much thinner than when I last saw you. And are you growing a beard?’

Jonathan rubbed at the stubble on his chin in an annoyed fashion, his eyebrows drawing in as he suddenly looked sulky. ‘What is the point of keeping up the traditions of being a London gentleman when I am trapped in a prison of darkness and never see anyone else from London?’

‘But Jonathan, that is precisely why you should keep them up,’ Arabella insisted gently. He only looked peevish, so she changed the subject. ‘How do you progress, with the darkness?’

Jonathan looked grim. ‘I wish I could say that we are making good progress, Arabella. But I cannot.’

Arabella tried to cover up a deep sigh by smiling brightly at him, but she couldn’t mask the disappointment that she felt—the sudden sinking sadness in her heart.

Jonathan took her hands in his and they sat thus in silence for a long time in the winter damp under unEnglish stars until finally they, by unspoken mutual assent, both stood and walked slowly back towards Mrs Strange’s house. At the gate, they stopped.

‘I still hope to break this curse, Arabella,’ Jonathan said quietly. Arabella nodded. ‘I will see you again soon.’

‘Goodbye, Jonathan,’ Arabella said.

‘Goodbye,’ he replied.

Arabella stepped back onto the English ground of Portman Square, and walked across the street to her own doorway. She did not turn back to watch Jonathan walk away into his unEnglish darkness, but she imagined him going back to the bench and picking up his book and walking up the small path to the lighted house. She knew by the time she reached her own door, the garden would be back to normal.


End file.
